Irish beer
Irish beer is mostly about stout and porter: dark, dry and roasted in flavour. At Hoptimaal you'll find those styles and IPA from, among others, Guinness, O'Hara's Brewery, Galway Bay Brewery, Lough Gill Brewery and Whiplash. Pick a brewery or browse all the Irish beers we have in stock.
- In stock now8 beers
- Breweries5
Breweries from Ireland 5
All beers in stock 8
Brewing in Ireland is older than hops
Beer has probably been brewed in Ireland since the Bronze Age. At Cardarragh in County Galway, archaeologists found a possible brewing site, a fulacht fiadh. In 2001 they brewed a trial beer there: a gruit of barley, bog myrtle and meadowsweet, so without hops.
Hops are not grown in Ireland, so brewers had to import them, at first mostly from Flanders. An import ban in 1733 forced them to buy more expensive hops from England. Sometimes they brewed without hops or with native herbs. English influence went further than that: taxes and legislation helped determine what was brewed and how.
Around 1800, Ireland had more than two hundred breweries, 55 of them in Dublin. After that the sector shrank sharply: by 2007 only about twelve were left.
Stout and porter are the backbone
Porter originated in London in the early 18th century and quickly became popular in Ireland. The first Irish porter was brewed in 1776. After the invention of black patent malt in 1817 it could be made more cheaply: 5% of that almost burnt, dark malt and 95% pale malt was enough. That porter grew into a dry stout, in Irish leann dubh, which was Ireland's most important beer in the early 20th century.
Guinness is the best-known result. Arthur Guinness started a brewery in County Kildare in 1756 and moved to Dublin in 1759. He first brewed ale and then switched to porter. By 1840, 53% of production was already going abroad. Guinness is still the biggest stout brewer, with the smaller brewers Murphy's and Beamish as well-known names alongside it.
Today lager outsells stout, but stout is still the beer Ireland is known for.
Irish beer at Hoptimaal
With us it's all about stout and porter, complemented by IPA and a Quadrupel. Guinness is here, of course, alongside O'Hara's Brewery, Galway Bay Brewery, Lough Gill Brewery and Whiplash. From Lough Gill you'll find, for example, the Imperial Oatmeal Stout and Shamrock. O'Hara's Leann Folláin, Galway Bay Ostara and Whiplash The Sup are highly rated on Untappd.
Every brewery has its own page with all the beers we supply from it. That way you can keep exploring brewery by brewery.
Frequently asked questions
What is typical Irish beer?
Stout is the best-known Irish beer type. It grew out of porter and became a dry stout, in Irish leann dubh. Guinness is the best-known example.
Which Irish breweries are well known?
Guinness from Dublin is by far the best known, with Murphy's and Beamish as smaller stout brewers. At Hoptimaal you'll also find O'Hara's Brewery, Galway Bay Brewery, Lough Gill Brewery and Whiplash.
Was Irish beer always brewed with hops?
No. Ireland doesn't grow its own hops, so they were imported, and sometimes people brewed without hops or with native herbs. The trial beer from 2001, based on a Bronze Age site, was a gruit without hops.
Beer from other countries
- Dutch beer 178
- American beer 83
- Belgian beer 67
- Canadian beer 106
- German beer 38
- English beer 39
- Spanish beer 21
- Romanian beer 17
- French beer 16
- Swedish beer 15
- Norwegian beer 13
- Estonian beer 17
- Polish beer 10
- Finnish beer 9
- Hungarian beer 7
- Latvian beer 17
- Croatian beer 8
- Danish beer 8
- Portuguese beer 4
- Welsh beer 5
- Scottish beer 4
- Brazilian beer 3
- Ukrainian beer 2
- Greek beer 3
- Slovenian beer 3
- Czech beer 3
